


Broken Spirit

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: First Age, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:38:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reflections of Maedhros on seeing Earendils star for the first time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Broken Spirit  
  
I look upwards to see the bright star above me shine for the first time. For a single moment I feel relief such as I have not felt in millennia flood through my tired body. Even I can not be expected to climb the very heavens to regain my father’s accursed jewels. I even smile and remark as much to my last remaining brother. His face shines with hope at my statement. Maybe just maybe there will be peace for us after so much conflict, after so much blood.  
I am a fool to think such.  
I know even as I look at this miracle above me that there will never be any peace for me. I have done too much I can not ever atone for. I am broken inside and it is irreparable. There was one once who thought he could repair me. But he is long gone and I was not as badly broken then though it would seem to look at me now that I am stronger. Physically the hardships have strengthened me when once I doubted to ever be able to hold a sword again. They have taken there toll in other ways.  
I have become all that I once hated.  
  
I remember long ago an oath given out of wrath and that damning, maddening loyalty we all of us felt for him. Even you, my pure one, my better half; you swore it too. But you never felt the weight of it like I. Who could? After all I am the eldest, the one responsible for keeping it. No matter what else I have given up, I have kept to that oath and may we all be damned for it. I know I will be at the end. This star is not the end no matter how much my tattered heart and soul call out for it. I see now an end can only be found in completion. Completion of life or oath; I can no longer tell.  
  
Even before that oath I was tainted. In the perfection of Valinor marred forever by those dark images which still haunt me in the midnight hours. That was the worst one, the first. When amid the pearl strewn streets of Aqualonde we shed blood together. I never understood why you followed us. I think you were captured in that wholly intoxicating dream of a free land beyond the sea. You were swept away by the seeming righteousness in my father’s words and his wrath against the dark one. What fools were we to believe in a noble cause and a free land? No cause is noble and no land is free. I have learnt that now at too high a cost.  
  
I learnt it at last looking down at your dead body, caked in filth and blood like the ruination of all my dreams, fears and hopes. I brought you to that fruitless war with my stupid belief in redemption. I dared to believe that I could defeat him. More, that I could restore the Noldor to their former glory and redeem us that awful deed.  
  
You should have left me on that cliff Findekano. You should have given up when I said I would not see you out of shame for my sunken form. Ugly, I was ugly. I had never been that before. Yet you did not think me so or did not see me as such. Though the servants would shrink from my form you unflinchingly performed every task I needed doing for me with tenderness. I do not know how you found the patience I often wonder if I would have been as good. Could I have been as good to you?  
  
I owe you so much. I hate you for leaving me. I hate myself for letting you.  
  
You once said that if I fulfilled the potential you knew I had then that would be thanks enough. Another time you said if I just got better that would be enough. I did the latter. In my spare moments, I wonder what potential you saw.  
  
I am a great warrior, a fearless leader but I do not think that is what you meant. I was once a king. You convinced me of the meaninglessness of that title and I gave it up. Though I knew my father would have wished the family to hold on to that title with the bitterness with which we have followed his oath. I still remember the look of anger on Caranthir’s face when I told him I had given the kingship of the Noldor to Fingolfen. Even Maglor looked shocked. The bitter arguments that ensued were but a little price to see the look of pride on your face as I knelt to my new king and in so doing healed the rift between our houses at least a little.  
  
I saw in the eyes of your people that that rift would never wholly be healed. I saw it in your look of pain as you told me of that tortuous journey I had subjected you to. A shinning banner in the sun and you had done that which was thought impossible. I stood aside at the burning of those ships but I should have rested control from my father then and sent them back for you. Even unknowing of my protest you forgave me so readily.  
  
I have never forgiven you. I have never forgiven what you took from me. I deserved all I was put through by the dark one for what I had done but I never deserved you. I never deserved your mercy or your love.  
  
For look what it has brought about. I left your body with a chill in my heart and fire in my eyes. I let myself be so easily persuaded by my hot headed brothers into another blood shedding. Only this time I could not plead ignorance or the blindness of a follower. I led and I killed. We gained nothing except the death of innocent children. The ruination of another fair realm and the furthering of the dark ones plans whom we had sworn ourselves against.  
  
I pray now for death. Not to go to Mandos halls and find redemption or family but a true death. As the race of men understand it. Something dark, all consuming, a void without tormenting memories that is the end I pray for. I could not face you in my fair ruination as I did in my crippled hope.  
  
My most hated and cherished memories involve you. You are ever part of me and I hope that I am ever part of you. That you will carry the part of my soul you saw promise in with you and keep it forever safe from the corrupting influences of this free world.


End file.
